154. DISRUPTION - Its Importance and its Impotence
Read More“I’ve been thinking a lot about protest and rebellion the last week….“
153. PHILOSOPHY AND THE CORONATION - Questions Raised By The Crowning Of A New King
Read More“The coronation of a new King is an undoubtedly historic moment, but it raises a lot of philosophical questions…“
137. NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS - On Our Obligation to Stay Informed
Read More“If I told a colleague or friend that I have never watched Breaking Bad or watched The Godfather, they might be surprised, even incredulous, but they could not call me irresponsible. If I told them I didn’t watch the news, however, it would be a different order of outrage.“
130. THE TRIAL & EXECUTION OF SOCRATES - A guest writer reflects on Socrates and asks: 'is democracy a tyranny'?
Read More“The same law which produces justice can be unjust and immoral if interpreted by a tyrant. Tyranny in democracy is almost undetectable because the whole system is depicted to be busy in the service and security of people. But what if the people become a tyranny? Sometimes the fanaticism of the majority, or the sophistry and rhetoric of the minority, can take the shield of law and trample moral codes.“
121. CONFIDENCE MAN - What Exactly Do The Conservative Party Have Confidence In?
Read More“According to last week's confidence vote, the majority of Conservative members of Parliament have confidence in the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. 211 out of 359 MPs, or 59%. But what does this actually tell us? And why do we care about their levels of confidence? Should confidence have anything to do with governing in a democracy? And, if it does, ought the question of confidence be put to the demos - the whole population - rather than merely the MPs of the current ruling party, many of whom are frontbenchers dependent on the very Prime Minister whose confidence is in question for their current political and financial success?“
104. DOWN ON DOWNING STREET - Refocusing The Ethical Inquiry Away From Christmas Parties
Read More“Because if this government falls - and it should - it should be for their far more egregious moral wrongs than this purely selfish complaint: how come they got to have a party last year when we couldn’t have one ourselves?“
98. INTERPRETING THE RESULTS - What Do Votes Ever Really Tell Us?
Read More“the arguments for democracy are independent from the mechanics of voting and, too frequently, true, authentic, democracy is impeded by those unfit mechanics, not aided by it“
88. ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS - Correspondence on Justice
Read More“Many months ago, a student suggested several topics I might like to cover on future Philosophy Unleasheds. While I did one straight away, the remaining questions were soon lost to time as life got in the way and I forgot about the email entirely…“
76. SOME PEOPLE SAY I'VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY - So What?
Read More“people seem to forget that their authority is a gift we must choose to bestow; one for which they have to give us good reasons. For anyone ever told they have been “insubordinate”, the question must be asked: what damage did this insubordination do?“
70. TRUMP, UNFORTUNATELY, HAS NOT BEEN SILENCED - Thoughts on Freedom of Speech in the Digital Age
Read More“Good ideas grow, bad ideas shrink. As a consequence, good speech gets louder and bad speech soon gets drowned out. Not censorship, but developed understanding and evolution towards better ideas that, at a certain point, recognise certain voices as no longer worthy of being listened to. The fascists, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the conspiracy theorists - they have little to offer once we look beyond mere transgression and take the ideas seriously as speech. And so, rightly, they are discarded.“
63. THE VALUE OF PATIENCE - Responses to Waiting
Read More“It has been a week of waiting.“
60. THE TONE OF OUR OPPRESSION - Truth and Authority Under Trump
Read More“The Trump virus found the ultimate weaknesses in organised human life: 1) we have such shaky foundations at the best of times for what constitutes as real “knowledge” that if you repeat an untruth enough times, from enough “sources”, it can seem just as “true” as any legitimate truth; and 2) that the notion of external authority on which our political systems are based is entirely illusory. As any criminal can tell you: that there are laws against doing certain things impose no actual limitation on doing that which is against the law. Criminals, by definition, break laws all the time. And the only differences between those who break laws who we call “criminals” and those who break laws that we don’t, are either that they have been caught or that we don’t really enforce the law.“
59. IS THIS BLOG DANGEROUS? - On Indoctrination, Ideology and the DfE
Read More“unlike the politician, doomed to blind allegiance to whatever colour team they are playing for, on whatever side of the aisle, the philosopher has loyalty only to the truth. If you can show me my argument is wrong, I am not only willing to change my mind, logic dictates that I have to.”
55. THE WORLD (NOT JUST AMERICA) NEEDS BIDEN TO WIN THE 2020 ELECTION: A Student in the UK Weighs in on the Ethics of American Voting
Read More“since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the US has gone from perceived leader of the free world and centre of cooperation to a nation which continues to pull out of global organisations which ensure global security, health and sustainability, hence damaging the capability of all nations to respond to aggressive nations, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic“
49. AUTHENTIC DEMOCRACY & COVID 19: a Postscript on a Pandemic
Read More“Unfortunately for the world, though helpful to my book, far from illustrating the necessity of government, Covid-19 has served only to support the thesis defended within the pages of Authentic Democracy, proving even further how our current, flawed, political arrangements continue to fail us.“
43. CAPITALISM IS NOT BETTER, JUST EASIER - A Student Considers The Lazy Appeal of a Flawed Economic System
Read More“This is the fundamental foundation of capitalism. It is not the ‘freedom’ of the (not so free) free market or the liberality you get from a government or the ethical right to keep what is yours – it is the simplicity in caring for oneself. “
- Commercial Break: NEW BOOK OUT NOW - →
My new book - Authentic Democracy: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism - is out now as an e-book on Amazon and out in paperback from May 11th. Pre-order now from the publisher, Tippermuir Books, or from Amazon.
Read More38. QUESTIONS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD - Some Concerns and Queries As COVID-19 Continues To Spread
Read More“the world has changed. And here are the questions arising to me as it does…”
24. BREAKING THE CODE OF POLITICAL SILENCE - On Why Teachers Ought To Share Their Political Beliefs With Their Students
Read More“A teacher therefore has a duty to model democratic engagement to their students. A teacher not discussing an upcoming election or not having an opinion on the current political situation sends a negative message to their students that political engagement is not important.”
11. MONARCHY IN THE UK - Is This What Democracy Looks Like?
Read More“Either the monarch is sovereign or the people are. It cannot be both.”